700 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May I, 1909. 
Forty Weeks in the Wilderness. 
“M'hatever you were doing when this trouble 
began, stop it,” decreed the court of last resort, 
affirming the decisions of the lower courts, the 
doctors who for a year had been saying that 
tired nerves, “worn to a frazzle” in the mad 
game of the city, must have a rest. “Go to a 
farm, take to the woods,” the order that must 
be obeyed went on to say, 
and so we began to look 
about for “a lodge in some 
vast wilderness.” No fash¬ 
ionable resort for real rest 
—we wanted to get as far 
from the crowd as possible. 
In the Blue Ridge Moun¬ 
tains of Western North 
Carolina, “the land of the 
sky,” a friend led us to 
this quiet retreat of rest 
and beauty—Linville Falls. 
We felt sure tourists had 
not found it, we could 
learn so little about it be¬ 
fore we came. Certainly 
we escaped the demands of 
society, for few have come 
to enjoy the beauty, the 
sport and the exhilaration 
of the air during the forty- 
weeks we have been in the 
wilderness. Most of these 
were one-day visitors from 
nearby towns. Lack of 
railway facilities, the cost 
of building good roads in 
the mountains, and escape 
from the promoter’s eye 
have kept its beauty con¬ 
cealed from all but a for¬ 
tunate few. Some day the 
world will learn that hard¬ 
ly a successful resort in 
America has received from 
nature so many of the es¬ 
sentials for summer rest as 
this neglected spot in a re¬ 
gion now gaining attention 
for its perfect nerve food 
and assurance of sleep to 
sufferers from insomnia. 
With an altitude of only 
3,200 feet it does not ag¬ 
gravate nervous troubles by 
over-stimulation, as higher 
elevations do, yet the rec¬ 
ords of the United States 
Weather Bureau show that 
this locality is the coolest in the summer of any 
point in Eastern United States. 
The highest mountains east of the Rockies 
are near us. Mount Mitchell, 6,711 feet above 
the sea, lifts its granite crown higher than any 
other, but several are almost as high. An ex¬ 
cellent road offers an attractive drive neariy to 
the summit of Grandfather Mountain, altitude 
5,964 feet. It commands the best view of the 
Blue Ridge. 
In our secluded cottage at the head of the 
gorge of the Linville River the only variation 
from the wild stillness is the music of the falls. 
Since we came here four black bears have been 
taken within a mile of our cottage. We have 
enjoyed the delights of wild turkey, ’coon, ’pos¬ 
sum, quail and other good things. Fifty yards 
from our door the leaping rainbow trout, with 
which the river is filled, invite frequent visits 
from one who in other years has journeyed two 
thousand miles for this sport. Brook trout, too, 
in tributary streams, give variety. 
The best fishing, like most other good things 
in this world, is not the easiest, but in some 
years of fishing excursions in the mountains of 
the two Americas I have never found a stream 
that held out quite such inducements to the am¬ 
bitious angler as does the Linville in its deep, 
rocky gorge. For ten miles the river tears madly 
down the mountain, into which it has worn a 
channel through the quartzite to its granite bed, 
leaving ragged sides from 300 to 2,000 feet high, 
usually precipitous. In these ten miles the river 
falls 1,800 feet over numerous rapids and little 
cascades below the main falls, the latter giving 
ninety feet of the descent. 
“The wildest, most picturesque in the Southern 
Appalachians” is the characterization the scien¬ 
tists, who made the survey for the Appalachian 
Forest Reserve scheme, gave this great canon 
in their report to the President. Arriving at the 
bottom after a descent from ledge to ledge, 
hanging on by roots and trunks of big, old rho¬ 
dodendrons, the hardy angler begins his search 
for the big trout. Going down several miles he 
finds a natural preserve which only a few as 
adventurous as himself have visited. His re¬ 
ward, if he is skilled in the art of fly-casting, 
will often be trout ranging 
from three to six pounds in 
weight. It is no easy route 
and only the sure-footed 
and strong-limbed venture 
far below the big pool at 
the foot of the falls, where 
almost anyone may catch 
trout. Easy fishing, to be 
had above the falls, satis¬ 
fied me until the Blue 
Ridge air had in six 
weeks taken away my cane 
and made me fit for hard 
climbing. 
“Do you know you are 
going to the botanists’ 
paradise?” yearningly ask¬ 
ed a famous botanist on 
the eve of our departure; 
“I have to spend some time 
there,” he explained, “be¬ 
fore I can finish my book.” 
After we had been at Lin¬ 
ville Falls a few weeks we 
saw how well grounded 
was the claim that botani- 
cally this is one of the 
richest spots on earth. 
Even in the tropics I have 
not seen such variety, such 
endless profusion from 
April until September. 
Prof. Asa Gray explored 
this region thoroughly and 
to good purpose. The man 
who was his guide told me 
how one day the professor 
wandered off and was lost 
to everything but his search 
for some rare plants. “And 
I was put to the trouble of 
tracking him for miles,” 
the mountaineer complain¬ 
ed, “because I happened to 
take a little nap and let 
him get away.” While his 
friends were frantically 
searching for him he had 
forgotten them and dinner, 
for he had made a valuable discovery. 
The earliest bloom is the trailing arbutus, so 
much admired and desired, so rare and so un¬ 
willing to change its home. Here we have it 
in perfection and lavish abundance. The dainty 
little punctatum is the first of the three rhodo¬ 
dendrons that succeed each other from April to 
July. In May and June they have the help of 
six varieties of azaleas and the exquisite kalmia 
latifolia in painting the forest and the cliff sides 
in pink, rose, purple, orange, yellow, red and 
white. The hardy punctatum begins in late 
April to clothe the bare rocks it loves with its 
delicate, rose-tinted flowers. This is one of the 
most highly prized possessions of this locality. 
LINVILLE GORGE FROM THE BRINK OF THE LOWER FALLS. 
